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The royal family's existence is a constant reminder of the hollowness of John Major's rhetoric, and idiotic statements by its leading members a constant boost to the republican cause. They're fine opening hospitals. It's when they open their mouths they get into trouble.

Alastair Campbell

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Alastair Campbell
Age: 67
Born: 1957
Born: May 25
Diarist
Journalist
Novelist
Politician
Keighley
West Yorkshire
Alastair John Campbell
Republican
Statements
Idiotic
Cause
John
Reminder
Fine
Opening
Boost
Trouble
Majors
Reminders
Open
Mouths
Rhetoric
Causes
Major
Royal
Existence
Constant
Hospitals
Family
Members
Leading
Hollowness

More quotes by Alastair Campbell

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One in four of us will have a mental illness at some point. That is a lot of people.
Alastair Campbell
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One of the more fatuous remarks I've heard in recent days is that 'My Life,' Clinton's autobiography, is too long and, at almost 1,000 pages, short it is not. But this man was for eight years the President of the most powerful country on earth.
Alastair Campbell
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Tony's [Blair] convinced I'm going to find God. I do have spiritual moments, but I don't think it's God.
Alastair Campbell
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My public caricature - that of a self-confident alpha male - is only partly accurate.
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There is something in me that makes me see things through.
Alastair Campbell
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I have always been driven. I have always believed in what I believe very deeply.
Alastair Campbell
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I had a happy childhood.
Alastair Campbell
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I think I'm highly loveable.
Alastair Campbell
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Sometimes Jonathan [Powell] and myself would go to Tony [Blair] and ask him if he was absolutely sure about this or that. That was our job. But ultimately it was his decision.
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For all that the papers would say I was a liar, I took the words I was saying at briefings as seriously as Tony Blair took what he would say at the Despatch Box. I find it very difficult not to tell the truth. I felt I was accountable for what I said.
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I feel like thanking Paul Dacre every time, because the reason they ask me is because they think I've come through the other end with a pretty good reputation. Loads of people get a bad press but have a good reputation. [David] Beckham - think what he went through. [Bill] Clinton, likewise. You just have to be true to yourself.
Alastair Campbell
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To me, marriage is partly a religious thing and I'm not religious.
Alastair Campbell
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I remember talking to Alex Ferguson about Tony [Blair] and Gordon [Brown], and he said: Why doesn't Tony just get rid of him? But if you sack someone in football, they can't turn up to training the next day. In politics they're still on the pitch. Gordon would still have been a big player.
Alastair Campbell
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Like most meaningful activities, campaigns are team games.
Alastair Campbell
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Greg Dyke is on record as saying that once the BBC was attacked, it was their job to defend themselves. But that is not their job.
Alastair Campbell
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One day, we will look back and wonder how on earth we used to believe that depression was a lifestyle choice, only to be debated and taken seriously when an A List film star took his life, and the world filled with people saying how shocked and saddened they were.
Alastair Campbell
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I used to be very routine-based and the new thing in my life is not having a clear, full-time existence.
Alastair Campbell
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So here is one of my theories on happiness: we cannot know if we have lived a truly happy life until the very end. This view of life and death was reinforced by my close witnessing of the buildup to the death of Philip Gould. Philip was without doubt my closest friend in politics. When he died, I felt like I had lost a limb.
Alastair Campbell
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As Tony [Blair] said in his book, Gordon [Brown] was brilliant and impossible. If he'd just been one of those things, the options are obvious.
Alastair Campbell
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Paul Keating told us before we were elected that you can do deals with [Rupert] Murdoch without saying you were doing a deal. Did we do that kind of thing? Maybe. But from around about the turn of the century, I felt strongly that we had to do something about media ownership and self-regulation. Tony [Blair] disagreed.
Alastair Campbell